Keeping up with Jones: Republicans are accusing one of Mr. Obama’s top advisers of being a communist and calling for his resignation....

Mr. Jones was caught on tape using an unprintable word to describe Republicans and allowed his name to be put on a letter requesting an investigation of whether the Bush administration allowed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to happen as a pretext for war....

Conservatives are abuzz over the mainstream media’s oversight of the story. According to the Washington Examiner, as of 11:30 a.m. Friday, none of the major news outlets, including The Times, had mentioned the controversy.

Whether the Bush administration allowed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to happen as a pretext for war? The petition — read it — "calls for immediate public attention to unanswered questions that suggest that people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war." (Boldface added.)

The Caucus toned down what the petition said and did not link to it. There's a big difference between "allowed" — which might mean only the administration was not sufficiently vigilant — and "deliberately allowed" — which accuses the administration of knowing and letting it happen. The petition is asserting that there is reason to think the Bush administration wanted the attacks to occur so it could lead us into war. The innocuous paraphrase in the Caucus prevents us from feeling outraged at the document Jones "allowed his name to be put on." There's that word "allowed" again! How passive and unknowing was he? He signed it! Let's speak English and quit pussyfooting. The Caucus wanted to frame this as a story of bad old Republicans causing trouble.

Now, back to today's article on the resignation:

Controversy over Mr. Jones’s past comments and affiliations has slowly escalated over several weeks, erupting on Friday with calls for his resignation.

Appointed as a special adviser for “green jobs” by President Obama, Mr. Jones did not go through the traditional vetting process for administration officials who must be confirmed by the Senate. So it was not until recently that some of Mr. Jones’s past actions received broad airing, including his derogatory statements about Republicans in February and his signature on a 2004 letter suggesting that former President George W. Bush might have knowingly allowed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to occur in order to use them as a “pre-text to war.”

Not just knowingly, but deliberately. Please quote to the petition. And link to it.

Mr. Jones’s involvement in the 1990s with a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement prompted recent accusations by conservative critics that he associated with Communists. The group, according to a post-mortem written by some of its founders, was an anti-capitalist, antiwar organization committed to achieving “solidarity among all oppressed peoples” with “direct militant action.”

"Involvement," "statements," "associations" — what did Jones do exactly? The NYT should serve its readers by putting us in a position to think about the trustworthiness of the Obama administration and its selection of "czars." This isn't just another occasion to note that "Republican blogs" and "conservative talk show hosts" attack the administration. It's interesting that the opposition won a "victory," but more important than the endless partisan battles is the question whether we can trust the administration.

Mr. Jones apologized on Wednesday...

“I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past,” Mr. Jones said in a statement announcing his resignation that was released early Sunday morning....

Does that mean the NYT will not go into the matter of what Jones did and said and what the Obama administration knew about it? He's gone now. Go back to looking away, like good little Obamites.

I hope that Americans across the political spectrum can be appalled at the idea of a Truther being accepted as a senior WH staffer. There is no place in our Government for a person who believes that the US Government and its leaders were complicit in 9/11.

Further, Congress and the people should resist and condemn Obama's disregard for the Constitution, and Congress's "Advise and Consent" duty, as represented by the appointment of 31 Czar's, all not confirmed, most in positions with no basis in law, who by their presence within the WH hold more power over policy than the relevant Cabinet Secretaries.

PS: Remember what Obama's senior advisor and domestic policy guru said:JARRETT: Oooh. Van Jones, alright! So, Van Jones. We were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. We were watching him, uh, really, he’s not that old, for as long as he’s been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas he has. And so now, we have captured that. And we have all that energy in the White House.

PPS: It doesn't say much about the "best transition evah" and Obama's judgement when the WH is reduced to chosing between:

1. So did you not know he was a truther?2. Or did you not care, because hell fit right in

Pathetic that most stories are focusing on some rant he made about Republicans as though that's the reason he's resigned. I didn't even know about the anti-Republican screed. The other stuff is much worse.

Once again, this gets to Obama's "judgement", which is, let's be clear, not what was advertised. McCain is looking better everyday. Palin even better.

Let's be clear, this is an Administration peopled by Chicago left-liberals. The fact that Van Jones signed a 9/11 Truther Document is something that they could have reasonably "got past", because it was directed at the Hated Bush. So, in the end, no harm, no foul.

It's only when it got public and the President started to be harmed that Jones had to duck under the Bus.

As to the squalid New York Times? Has anyone seen Walter Duranty's Pulitzer lately? The one Stalin gave him?

Freeman, I know you know this, but let me state it for people who are still new to the concept of "the Administration is a total screw-up":

Finally running the story about Van Jones is an admission that the NYT failed to cover the news. So, in an attempt to cover up the cover-up, the NYT clings to The Narrative that it's all about the nasty ReTHUGlicans getting their feelings hurt by being called a bad word.

Van Jones' claims of a smear campaign ring rather hollow when you see the actual video of him spouting his nonsense. He brings to mind a line from one of Richard Pryor's comedy videos about his wife catching him in bed with another woman, "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

Obama is proving himself truly an amateur executive as many of us pointed out last year. I'm still waiting for evidence that Obama is as intelligent as the Left claims.

If someone was looking for something to do this Sunday and wants to become a inside-the-beltway name like GatewayPundit, I'd tell them to start by spending some time on the White House website. Pull up the list of the top 100 WH staffers - advisors, czars, assistant to the assistant cabinet members. Google away. I guarantee there are others inside the WH who have some unfortunate ties in their recent history. Why? Because we just came through some of the most polarized years of our Republic. Democrats - mainstream Democrats - said things about President Bush that were ludicrous and detestable. Chances are good that some of those very politically active Democrats now work for the POTUS.

And the press hasn't done the research which leaves it up to the blogosphere.

It will be interesting to see if this is just the opening crack that leads to the whole dam bursting (anyone who's seen the sequence in "Force 10 From Navarone" can just close their eyes...).

Since most of the czars' backgrounds are largely unknown, this would seem to be the tipping point where Rahmbo's end run around the Constitution could very quickly topple over. I would suspect most of the faux Romanovs are activists in the ACORN mold and won't stand much scrutiny. And when they start to go, the administration's last vestige of credibility will likely go with them.

So hey there’s this guy we never mentioned to you who has been embroiled in a weeks long controversy we never mentioned to you, and the heat we never mentioned to you got so intense he was forced to resign! Which we are forced to mention to you… damn it! Our four layers of editors and fact checkers have this to say, “We would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for that meddling Glenn Beck!”

Van Jones resigned.Van Jones was an avowed communist, a radical, a Maoist, who, like the President, worked with a former founding member of an anti-US terrorist organization from the 1960s, the Weathermen (astonishingly, it was a different founder).

Yet for some reason, the left is once again able to convince the vast majority of Americans that pointing out the fact that there are communists in government is prima facie evidence that whoever does so is a rabid right-wing lunatic.

Whittaker Chambers was right in his gloomy prediction, just 50 years early.

“Oooh. Van Jones, alright! So, Van Jones. We were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. We were watching him, uh, really, he’s not that old, for as long as he’s been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas he has. And so now, we have captured that. And we have all that energy in the White House.” - Valerie Jarrett

I rarely comment here (and I sense I'm more moderate than most) but this whole episode is very disturbing for several reasons:1) I can't imagine any way to "argue around" the signing of the petition. I can imagine the administration not being aware of this but not being aware of the involvement in planning a "truther" rally?2) Surely MSM could see this as a significant story regardless of who first brought it up3) Have Republicans become dependent upon "fringe" sources (i.e. Beck) to bring up concerning areas within the present administration and only if they get popular traction and/or have merit "make it a big deal"? If so then any concern raised by the "mainstream" of the Republican party will be tainted by the fringe.

Letting Beck carry the story was a brilliant strategy because it points out a few things:

a) the indignation wasn't just from a party; it was from Americab) the flaming outrage of Americans was not worth the time of the nail-polishers and navel-gazers in the MSM, showing that the MSM has its own agenda (and not that of America) as its purpose

The Republicans were right to let this come out as a populist outrage.

How is Glenn Beck fringe? I realize that he's considered fringe by many people, but how is he really fringe? Is constantly begging people to pay attention to the government and espousing Constitutional Libertarianism truly fringe?

He can be overwrought, but he's no more overwrought than other solidly mainstream things like talk shows. And he's not some hate-monger. He's not even a partisan.

Granted I've only heard limited bits of his programs, but I don't see the fringe thing. Emotional at times but not fringe.

I can't imagine any way to "argue around" the signing of the petition.

But, like NBC said, maybe he didn't sign the petition. His name just ... appeared! Totally beyond his control! Your signature can do all kinds of crazy things behind your back when you're not paying attention.

He'll go back to suckering a select group of people to support his fantasy life instead of the entire U.S. tax base for the foreseeable future. Oh wait I'm sure he'll be getting government money some how.

All of which will be dealt with in the usual manner - nothing. (It's so much easier to deal with the "he called republicans "assholes" thing.)

I dare you to read the forth post from my blog and tell me I didn't see this coming, or that my analysis of this whole thing is somehow off. (And, yes, that restaurant is "Cafe Gratitude", the same one that was recently making headlines - I am so wired into this shit, it's scary.) As you keep denying what I'm saying, you just look complicit, and goofy, to me.

In defense of the Times, they wrote the petition asked to investigate whether Bush "knowingly allowed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to occur in order to use them as a `pre-text to war.'That's close enough to "deliberate" for me, and does not describe White House negligence. Bush couldn't have negligently created a pre-text in allowing 9/11 to happen. He knew it was going to happen but did nothing so we could go to war, goes the conspiracy narrative.

Now, the Times should have said he signed the petition, rather than just let them put his name onto it.

Anyways more from Jake Tapper at his blog Political Punch at abcnews.com-

On Friday a 2002 document emerged in which Jones was on the "organizing committee" of a newspaper called WAR TIMES -- "A New, Biweekly, Tabloid Newspaper Opposing the 'War on Terrorism.'"

The WAR TIMES document asserts that the "world's most powerful nation has mercilessly bombed Afghanistan and is installing a neo-colonial government of its own choosing, although that country has never attacked the U.S. Millions of Afghans have been displaced and face starvation this winter. The administration has also green-lighted massive Israeli assaults on Palestine, and it threatens to attack Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, and other countries. The agenda seems clear: to remake the world in the rightwing image with little regard for human consequences."

WAR TIMES's announcement appeared with the announcement of a protest march demanding a congressional inquiry into whether and how much the Bush administration may have played a role in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Because they can neither defend or explain it, except to simply admit Obama knowingly appointed Jones, a known radical and former member of STORM, a communist organization, to a leadership position in the US government.

It was as recently as 1992 that Jones declared that he had become a Communist, and so helped form the Communist revolutionary movement STORM. STORM documents announced their “commitment to the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Lenninism.”

You can read STORM's own written history here.Note the cute communist red star, emblazoned with a lightning bolt.

I enjoyed this comment about the New York Times over at the latimesblogs site:

"By the way, will somebody please memo the NY Times about this huge 10 day old story? Their reporters haven't printed a single word because, I guess, of continuing planned cutbacks--in credibility, that is."

That pretty much nails it.

Now, when they finally have printed a story, it's a textbook example of shoddy journalism - editorial masquerading as reporting. That opening line is just pathetically lame and no responsible editor should have let it pass. Why don't they explain who Jones is and state that he resigned so their readers have the basic facts before they start in with the analysis? Remeber this from journalism school - who, what, when, where, why? If this had been a follow-up story to an earlier article it might have some justification, but instead it's simply dereliction of duty.

The Times did the same thing with the resignation of CNN chief Eason Jordan. The first word they printed about him was a story on his resignation, without ever covering the facts of the controversy as it developed.

What's even funnier is this line from the first paragraph, "Eason Jordan....resigned abruptly last night..." Why abruptly? Well, because of the controversy that had been going on for two weeks that the New York Times had never bothered to inform its readers of. It was only abrupt if you weren't paying attention. As they acknowledge in the end of that very same sentence, "...citing a journalistic tempest he touched off during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late last month [JAN 2005]." The article was published on February 12, 2005.

I remember my favorite comment on the Eason Jordan story. It applies just as well here: It would have been so much easier for the main stream media if Jordan had just said he was resigning to spend more time with his family.

Van Jones was brought low by a vicious smear campaign orchestrated through his own mouth. Observe the fiendish subtlety of THAT.

People, I can't stress it enough. It looks like a simple tinfoil cap, but it's actually an extremely sophisticated piece of techno-electric shielding. Don't let just anyone work on it. Don't attempt to tune the fields yourself. You need a professional for this. Because if you get it wrong, we're going to beam the same drivel into your mouth, and then use it to take your rightful job away from you.

WV - ulact. 1) The wailing cry of a La Leche League member reading La Llorona. 2) What the one told VJ late last night: "Dude, ulact sense, 'n' I got to cut you loose."

“Jones was also a perfect symbol of the dereliction of the mainstream media in the Age of Obama. Those who rely on the New York Times for their news, for example, will learn of Jones’s departure some time soon, but it will come as a great surprise to them, and well after the shouting is over. Whatever Jones said is already heard indistinctly, like a distant echo, in the Times’s lame overnight report. Byron York’s tabulation of words devoted to the recent revelations about Jones in the mainstream media as of Friday and Saturday provided a notable marker.”

The thing is Althouse and everyone with half a brain knows the GOP has no power to force anything right now. So it's important to call bullshit on the MSM. Yeah I know they're trying to say "look at the GOP bogeyman! don't notice the Obama-man behind the curtain!"

Please understand that just because Van Jones said those things in the past, doesn't mean "rightwing nutjobs" should "smear" Jones by drudging up all those old video clips showing him saying those things! Jeez, isn't anyone in this once wonderful country able to redeem himself, or herself as the case may be, anymore! By gosh, what V. Jones said yesterday should stay in the past!

Except when a Conservative says it and then it must be hung around him, or her as the case may be, forever. Please understand that Van Jones has been martyred for the cause, and now songs will be sung about him around group bonfires.

Beldar said...Prof. A:You (famously) voted for the guy. Are you no longer a "good little Obamite," or does that only refer to some subset of those who voted for him?

Beldar,

She's very much off the koolaid. She may still rationalize the vote last Nov by saying McCain would have been worse, but she's over the hopey changey stuff, he's not the bi-partisan pragmatist that she expected.

Does the MSM think they're fooling anyone? This isn't 1972 when they could sway public opinion so easily. The center does not believe the GOP forced Van Jones out, those who even knew who he was. Van Jones who?

It's depressing to observe that Van Jones has gone through so much schooling and ends up so ignorant and opinionated. It's more depressing to think that during his extensive education no professor took the time to correct the reasoning processes that has led Van Jones to make so many lame and ugly statements......As rinhardin observes, there is a certain amount of empirical evidence that can be used in support of the argument that Republicans are assholes. However, I think Jones was using the asshole appellation not to signify Republicans but as a code word meaning white mother fuckers. I think much of his Marxism and radical environmentalism can be explained in this context: He thinks rich white people suck....Here again, while there is much emperical evidence to support this position, it still does not tell the whole story....If, as Jones maintains, America is owned and run by assholes, i.e. rich white motherfuckers, it is incumbent upon him to explain how such assholes have created a nation that black Marxists wish to live in. He should further explain how black Marxists have created nations in Africa that every sane person not related to the President wish to flee.

I've been thinking for a couple of days now that Van Jones reminds me of a certain sort of Christian convert. His story of going to San Francisco and deciding to stay and the sorts of things he got involved in there remind me strongly of the convert who seems converted more by the life and purpose and importance than by faith in anything in particular. It could be a conversion to *anything*, really, so long as it supplied a crusade and attention and the vital feeling and approval as well as the disapproval and prosecution. This person needs something to fight against to feel alive.

And then they crash and burn, spectacularly, and everyone is confused how someone who's faith seemed so strong could end up that way.

Hey where are the lefty trolls? C'mon fellas you can rationalize this disaster for President Goddam America as the evil machinations of the Right Wing Noise Machine, or Darth Cheney, or Bu$hitler, or.....

"It is literally impossible for most white people to hear people of color speak about our pain, just literally impossible."--The Wisdom of Van Jones

Interestingly, I don’t remember Van Jones having much to say when the Darfurians were crying out in pain, pain that was being inflicted on them by lighter skinned people. His web site says that he is a 1993 graduate of Yale Law School, so presumably he was out in the world and an important human rights activist by that time. I raise the Yale Law School point because Ronan Farrow is also a Yale Law grad and he *has* spoken out on this issue and done yeoman work.

Nor do I remember hearing Van Jones talk about Rwanda in 1994 when Susan Sontag and her ilk were lobbying for action in Bosnia and ignoring Rwanda. Van Jones, you don’t care about the pain of people of color when their light skinned oppressors are your ideological allies. Phony.

1. They failed to investigate this man when he was appointed to this position. As long as Obama is going to appoint people to major positions in his administration through methods that avoid congressional oversight, it's up to the news media to do their job by reporting on their backgrounds.2. They decided not to pick up the story after Glenn Beck began pursuing it. This is because they wanted to make Glenn Beck the story instead.3. When Van Jones resigned, they covered it using the most mealy-mouthed language. They stressed that he had to resign because he called Republicans assholes or because conservatives were calling him a communist or because his name appeared on a list related to 9/11.

Any congressman who votes for federal funding to support major media outlets as they go bankrupt will find himself facing an opponent funded by me.

"I am fascinated at how they pull this off? Conf calls, ESP, super-secret lists or talking points labelled "stuff we agree we will not report"?"

No, the simple explanation is they're all part of the hive-mind. They've been assimilated. They don't need to consciously collude, they get their instructions directly at neuron level through the subpace domain.

I would like to see congress ban all governmental czars. Words mean something and the word czar is antithetical to everything the US stands for. Unfortunately, their actual function is an example of congress abrogating their responsibilities.

It is telling, and sad, that the congress is spending so much time on constitutionally dubious actions while avoiding their constitutionally mandated responsibilities (this applies to both sides of the aisle with precious few exceptions.)

It all started with the "drug czar" because Richard Nixon convinced the "silent majority" that we needed to crack down on devil drugs. Still 80% of the people think we need "war on drugs". As long as most people do not believe in freedom we will get more of these "czars".

...allowed his name to be put on a letter requesting an investigation of whether the Bush administration allowed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to happen as a pretext for war...

Oh, to be a psycholinguist, to analyze the two senses in which the Times uses the word "allowed" in the passage up above, the two different weights of responsibility attached to them.

Jones "allowed" his name to appear on a petition. So passive. His signature was floating around in his pocket and just fell on that petition. But Bush "allowed" the 9/11 attack as a deliberate attempt to change the course of history and get the US military into Iraq.

What Jones allowed -- how could any rational person not understand how something like that could happen to a perfectly good man?

Van Jones says he is resigning because he doesn't want to detract from Obama's agenda for health care reform. If anything, this has been a good break for Obama from the thorough trashing of their plan they'd been taking. The past couple weeks have at least cooled things down on the health care debate a little bit. There's no question that Van Jones has been a loss for the administration, but is it better than the beating they were taking on health care?

I had thought that Glenn Beck's "latching" onto Van Jones was in response to a connection between Jones and an organized boycott of Glenn Beck's show in retaliation for something Beck had (not quite) said.

Which if people in Obama's administration are organizing boycotts to punish rude television personalities ought to have been enough to concern anyone... even if Jones had no skeletons or even no closets at all.

All that can be heard from Obama is the sound of the proverbial cricket chirps. Yet, surely, once The One does manage to muster up some semblance of a "response," it will be much like those of his "addressing" of Ayers, of Rev. Wright, etc....uh, "I really didn't even know Van Jones... might have bumped into him once or twice...never one that I go to for advice or counsel..."

...woops, what a minute Mr. The One...that might have satisfied the state-run media with regard to Ayers or Wright and, as a result, might have been pushed aside, but how do you pull it off with respect to your hand-picked czar...the marxist who Jarret was salivating over, saying "they" had been watching "him" for some time?...oh yeah, call it a vast, right-wing conspiracy...sure, that's the ticket...

Synova, according to Hamsher the WH is punishing their own who stray off the reservation as well:

"I heard it over and over again -- if you wanted to criticize the White House on financial issues, your institutional funding would dry up instantly. The Obama campaign successfully telegraphed to donors that they should cut off Fund for America, which famously led to its demise. It wasn't the last time something like that happened -- just ask those who were receiving institutional money who criticized the White House and saw their funding cut, at the specific request of liberal institutional leaders who now principally occupy their time by brown nosing friends and former co-workers in the White House."

“I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past,” Mr. Jones said in a statement announcing his resignation that was released early Sunday morning....

And what is wrong with "investigating" if you're so certain the petition would be proved wrong.

Because it has already been thoroughly investigated and the findings publicly released. After a certain point, further calls for additional investigation are simply attacks on investigations whose conclusion one doesn't want to accept, and is an implicit accusation of bad faith on the part of those who have already conducted the investigation.

A loser in court is not entitled to unlimited groundless appeals; so too the continuing call for re-re-reinvestigation of settled facts with no new information is the unambiguous mark of a classless loser.